Light Come, Light Go

1

1999

"Fucking hell, Dad, seriously?" The houses passing by on the left gave way briefly to a stretch of sparse allotments, revealing the horizon beyond.  In the distance, across a stretch of grey water, a great slab of an island sat joined to the mainland by a single road and an adjoining thread of pebbled beach.

"Look at that, girls, hmm?" The driver said quietly through a widening grin. "Also, Ella, don't swear in front of your sister."

"Dad," said Daisy from the back seat, "I know what 'fucking' is. You don't need to do that all the time, okay? I swear, my friends swear, everybody swears."

"It looks like something out of a horror film..." Ella hunched in her seat for a better view as the road sloped downward. The island was mostly greenery and grey cliffs, it's relatively flat top had a halo of cloud or sea mist obscuring it. Areas of habitation clung to it in places like fungus.

"You're twelve, Daisy, you better not use that word.  And you absolutely do not know what it means. And when you eventually do know what it means, when you're thirty or so, you still pretend to me that you don't, okay?" 

  The car turned and headed down a long sloping road, nondescript red brick houses punctuated by the kind of shops that can only exist in pockets of suburbia: a small bakery, a shop selling handmade rabbit hutches, a fishing tackle and gun shop. Several pubs.  The island dead centre of the windscreen now, floating above everything.

  "Say again, pops? Do you even know me at all? Did you just say I was twelve?"

"That is sublime, Ella. That's the word you're looking for.  Awesome.  Proper awesome not American awesome.  In a horror film it would be... craggier and more sort of obvious. Although, I guess it does have a touch of Wicker Man about it. Only a touch. Daisy, you are twelve, aren't you?"

  "I'm FOURTEEN!" Daisy finally looked up from her Gameboy, slapping it into her lap as she did so. "I had a party! You paid for and attended my fourteenth birthday party! Some might even say you outstayed your welcome."

  "Come on, you're pulling my leg. I know how old you are."

  "She's fourteen, dad," Ella said disinterestedly, still frowning at the island ahead. "How many people actually live there?"

  "The island? Depends."

  "On what?" Ella glanced at him. He was smiling smugly.

  "If you're including convicts." 

  "You'd better not be... Seriously? Jesus. Daisy? Just so you know, Dad apparently didn't think our chances of being raped and murdered back home were high enough, so he's taking us to live on some kind of Alcatraz prison island..."

  "Oh, come on.  They're in jail! It's technically safer."

  "Nice.  So, anything going for it other than the prison?"

  "Well, there's three prisons, actually.  There's the main one up there with the big stone entryway look..." he indicated with a vague nod toward the top of the island, where cut into the green hills could be seen a huge white stone passage.  "And then there's a borstal somewhere for the youngsters, and then over there... you see that big box in the harbour?" Ella followed his gaze to the water at the islands foot and saw what she presumed he was referring to - a big rectangular structure apparently moored at the harbours edge.  "Well, that, interestingly, is one of only a few functioning prison ships in the world.  Cool, huh?"

  "That's-  Yeah, that's cool, Dad.  Seriously?"

  "Swear to God.  Three prisons.  So you girls behave, when we get there, okay?"

  "What happens when they get out?" Daisy was leant against the window of the car, staring expressionlessly out at the island.

  "What d'you mean?" William glanced back at her. "They're free, reformed, good citizens again.  They go home."

  "Where's home?"

  "All over.  They're sent from all over the country."

  "Do they have to go home?  What's to stop them just staying on the island with us?"

  "Well, nothing. They've done their time, Daisy, you can't judge people like that. Once they get out they've earned a clean slate."

  "I'm not judging them, Dad. Just asking a question."  Her focus slipped wearily back to the Gameboy.

  The car buffeted under strong and sudden gusts of wind as they left the cover of the surrounding buildings and headed out onto the featureless open road linking the island to the mainland.  To their right an equally featureless ridge of pebbles, to their left a grass bank and then the sea. Occasional headlights in the oncoming traffic as dusk began to dim the already grey sky. William clicked on the windscreen wipers, though whether it was rain or sea spray speckling the windscreen who could tell.

  The island opened out, unfolded, as they approached. It stopped being a single lump of land and stretched out into a real place.  Details became visible, roads and streets spreading up the islands steep flanks.

  They reached the island proper and drove through a square of tired terraced houses on one side and a smattering of old stone, corrugated iron, and boarded up concrete on the other.

  Daisy was leant against the window again, staring out forlornly. "Why do we have to move here?"

  "You know why, sweetheart.  We can't afford to stay at home anymore."

  "Because of mum."

  "Well, yeah."

  "But why here?"

  "Because we can stay with grandma.  She's got room for us, and we need somewhere to go. Simple as that."

  "Oh, that's bollocks, Dad", Ella said without any real seriousness.  "You just want to move here so you can research your book."

  The car began a steep winding climb upwards, through streets of old, weathered buildings, rows of small shops, a continuous stream of public houses.  "Well," said William, after a while. "Can't that just be a happy coincidence?"